Monday, May 14, 2018

Compost Tea

I made compost tea many years back (probably close to a decade ago now), after reading Toolbox for Sustainable City Living by Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew. (See my post on RUST for a bit about the book.)  I was reminded of this a couple of weeks back when I arrived to do an urban agriculture work day and walked into a mini-workshop on compost tea. The woman providing the information gave the best summary I’ve heard for using compost tea.

“Think of it as probiotics for plants,” she said.

Compost tea is derived from compost but it is used differently.   The main purpose of compost tea is to build up life in the soil. And, depending on what kind of life you want to build up (fungal or bacterial), you brew it differently.   All this is explained in the book, Teaming with Microbes by Lowenfels and Lewis.  Both this book and Toolbox have good descriptions of how to brew compost tea.

On the other hand, the method for compost tea described by Stephanie Davis in her book, Composting Inside and Out, (I talked about the book in my last post) doesn't involve aeration and so it creates an anaerobic ‘tea’, what Lowenfels and Lewis call ‘compost extract’.  If you want the right kind of microbes, you need to aerate it. (For a detailed, fussy description of how to brew compost tea, see this page by ‘The Soil Guy’.)  One way to get aeration is to use one of  those pumps that you aerate fish tanks with.   That's what I used, so many years ago.

It's not something you will need all the time, but if you really want to add life to your soil, compost tea will do it.


Quote of the Day: “The simplest definition of compost tea is: A brewed, water extract of compost.
“Properly made compost must be used…  Compost tea is therefore, a ‘cold brewing’ process, allowing growth of the organisms extracted from the compost.” - Elaine Ingham

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